BRIEFINGS: TRANSPORTATION; BUT WILL IT TAKE E-ZPASS?

Published: January 30, 2005

Half of another Garden State Parkway toll plaza has a date with the wrecking ball. Starting March 6, southbound tolls at the Union toll plaza will be abolished, and northbound tolls will be doubled to 70 cents. Union is the highway's second-busiest toll plaza. State officials awarded a $5.2 million construction contract for the project last Tuesday. Union will be the third Parkway plaza to get one-way tolls, after the Raritan and Asbury Park plazas. Transportation officials are also eyeing similar arrangements at the Essex, Bergen and Barnegat plazas, but those changes would not occur until 2007 at the earliest.